Friday, January 31, 2014

Hitman Absolution - Beautiful graphics, environment, and sound. Better AI and portrayal of women would have made it excellent

I just spent far too many hours playing Hitman Absolution. For the greater part, the game was fun.
When AI, Artificial Intelligence, is too good, the game is far too difficult to be fun. This game made me think that I am glad to not have aspired to become a police officer, fail in training, and default to become a security guard. These pawns were entirely disposable.

Other things that made little sense is the change into the uniform at each level. I understand that it is the character's distinctive look, but entering new environments, a disguise, even as a woman, would improve chances of success.
With regard to change of scenes or environments, were guards to be on high alert, opening a door seems to block them from moving all along to the next phase. Communication withing and between these teams seemed rather poor. I also would not like to be a guard, thinking how the disappearance of someone just spoken to has no influence on regular rounds. I somehow feel like the firefights killed the game which had so much potential.
 
I was quite frustrated with how the story was about the rescue of a girl.  I am not female, but the portrayal of women was not exactly balanced: all the police officers, miners, security guards were men. The few female characters were like concubines or attachées.
Some were well endowed femme fatales: the Saints, hypersexualized assassins dressed as nuns who received no character development, of course; Jade, an operator of the Agency; Layla, the wife of a manical weapon manufacturer.


Seeing that the writers of the game were all male, it is not a surprise that character development was not a strong point.

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